(Although this is perhaps the least of what I unearthed during that time, it still represents an impressive experiment in collective unconsciousness, in beehive mentality. Did more than a few of those brains set diligently upon the course plotted for them ever suffer a tremor, a tickle of an inkling of my manipulation? I doubt it. I’m too proud of my work, perhaps, but I did little harm and much good. Several instructors published papers in prominent journals without ever knowing I had color-coded their innocent discoveries into a vast pattern of conspiracy and misdirection. They stood in their sunlit lecture halls turning their ideas over and over in their hands—brightly colored baubles for their students to applaud, confident they had solved a complete puzzle rather than assembled a single piece. The students, meanwhile, became specialists sensitive to the rhythms of synergy, analysis, and synthesis. Tuning forks for knowledge, they vibrated prettily, their shiny surfaces one by one catching the light. I admit, I derived great satisfaction from all of this. To have such a measure of control made me nearly ecstatic at times, fool that I was. And still, I wasn’t gathering enough knowledge fast enough. I felt frustrated, twice-removed from where I needed to be: underground. Ironic that, aboveground, I felt much as James Lacond once described Tonsure underground:

Most of the time [Tonsure] walks in the darkest night. Now and again, a wavering finger of light flutters across the darkness, teasing him with the outline of a path. Hopeful, he runs toward it, only to find himself in another maze. The hope that night must give way to day allows him to continue, and he tries to guess where a more permanent light might break through—a crack, a crevice, a hole—but the end of night never comes.)

Early on, I met these students, Duncan’s unwitting accomplices in esoteric, possibly meaningless, research. They made no particular impression on me: a formless row of fresh-scrubbed faces attached to identical dark blue uniforms. The eyes that populated those ruddy faces sparkled or flared or reflected light according to the intensity of their ambition. Some students stared defiantly at you. Some let you stare through them. Still others looked away, or down at their feet—every foot hidden by proper white socks, sheathed in black, brightly polished shoes. They smelled like soap and sweat. Their voices cracked and buzzed and sang out with equal innocence and brashness. In their uniformed rows, I could not tell the poor from the rich, the smart from the stupid. Thus did Blythe Academy serve as an equalizer of souls.